Metaphysical Dreamer: The Art of Enrico Pinardi by Francine K. Miller 2012

Susan and I in one of the ‘every other’ free weekends during my internship at MGH wandered into an art gallery on Newbury Street in Boston in 1971.  Fifty two years later, the owners of that Gallery, Bernie and Sue Pucker remain dear friends.  One of the benefits of this friendship is that they often gift us publications from their gallery, including this wonderful volume of photographs of the works of Enrico Pinardi who has been exhibiting in their gallery since 1980.

Pinardi, who died in 2021 at the age of 87, was a sculptor, painter, photographer, drawer and collagist whose work reflected two major influences.  He had three grandfathers who were sculptors and worked under one of them in his Cambridge, MA studio for some years carving and sculpting objects and figures for churches.  Another influence was the Italian Metaphysical painters, De Chirico and Morandi.  As he described it in an interview which concludes the book, “I go back and forth between various mediums with a single vision…which deals with psychology and the psyche, with feelings and emotions which I try to capture.”   Sam Bok, another of the great artists represented by the Pucker Gallery, comments in the Afterword that Pinardi creates a ‘magical labyrinth of personal visions.”

The work presented in more than 100 photographs that accompany Miller’s text is quite striking—starkly void of any human presence and deeply metaphorical in its use of pyramids, cubes, tables, missiles, rainbows, and humanoid forms.  As always in trying to write about an art book, words are inadequate to describe the beauty of Pinardi’s work.

Visit the Pucker Gallery and watch for the upcoming shows at his alma mater, the Mass College of Art, and the school where he taught for more than 30 years, Rhode Island College.